


Trailblazer

by Pandemicron



Series: Infinity [2]
Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 04:37:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20252311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandemicron/pseuds/Pandemicron
Summary: A terrible winter drives the Jellicles to the edge of starvation. Pouncival disappears into a snowstorm to hunt, and Alonzo is determined to find him.





	Trailblazer

**Author's Note:**

> In the epilogue of "How We Find Infinity", we get the following description of Pouncival: "Pouncival was a tom Veronica didn’t know very much about; he’d come by the kittens’ den once or twice to talk to her mother, and she knew he was a great hunter, almost singlehandedly responsible for saving the tribe from starvation during that awful winter last year."
> 
> This is the awful winter last year.

There were winters in London, and then there were catastrophes.

In all his time with the Jellicles, Alonzo had never seen a season this bad. He had faint memories of a particularly nasty winter as a kitten, snow swirling against the deep black of night like an enraged beast, but back then he’d still had humans, the cold nothing but a distant spectre kept out by thick glass windows and a roaring fireplace, like a nightmare quickly forgotten upon awakening.

There was no waking from this dream now.

His paw slipped into an icy puddle and Alonzo hissed, drawing back to lick at the chafed skin. Only a couple hours traversing the concrete of the city, doing his damnedest to avoid the slushy grey snow, and already he could barely feel his feet. It wasn’t snowing anymore—small blessings—but even so, his thin, single-layered coat did hardly anything to keep the cold out, bitter wind biting into his skin with enough intensity to make him shiver. Layer, it was  _ freezing. _

What’s worse, he didn’t even have anything to show for it. The mouse he’d been stalking had somehow caught his scent and vanished into a crevice, though not before raising a ruckus that must have alerted every small animal within a mile to his presence. So much for dinner.

As if on cue, his stomach rumbled, and Alonzo sighed. He’d last eaten two days ago, and that had only been because Pouncival had managed to snag an extra sparrow just for the two of them. Alonzo didn’t usually think of himself as a terrible cat—he could stalk and play and dance just as well as everyone else, thank you very much—but, like all the other adults, he’d struggled to catch enough meat to sustain himself in this terrible winter. All their prey had gone underground, the humans who usually gave out scraps hiding in their warm homes, and if it wasn’t for Pouncival Alonzo knew they’d likely all have starved by now.

Under any other circumstances, he would’ve been brimming with pride. His mate was the best hunter the tribe had ever seen—Alonzo and Plato had delighted in reminding Pouncival of this fact when they’d sung him at the Ball last year, much to his embarrassment—and, true to his abilities, he was the only cat in the entire tribe who consistently returned from hunting rotations with successful kills, even as the snow thickened and the temperature dropped below freezing. But one cat could only do so much, and over the past few weeks Alonzo had only been able to watch helplessly as Pouncival volunteered for more and more trips out into the city, hunting at all hours of the day, barely sleeping, exhaustion thinning his flesh and pulling him down like a physical weight. 

This awful winter was killing his mate, and not through starvation.

It was this thought that made him quicken his steps, leaping up onto the dark brick wall that marked the border of the Junkyard. He’d finally managed to convince Pouncival to take a break that morning, to get some sleep while Alonzo took an extra hunting rotation. Even if ultimately he’d been unsuccessful, at least now he could spend a few hours curled up with his mate, just the two of them while the bitter cold world raged on outside. Lord knew they—and Pouncival especially—deserved some peace. 

The atmosphere at the mainstage was solemn and subdued, the air heavy with a nameless worry as it had been ever since the tribe first realized just how merciless this winter was going to be. Munkustrap huddled with a couple of other cats in one corner, speaking in low voices, but Alonzo paid them no mind. He didn’t have a kill to share, and just wanted to find Pouncival and sleep for about a year.

Most Jellicles knew that the giant pipe off the edge of the mainstage wasn’t actually a conduit; it didn’t lead out of the Junkyard, but instead terminated just a few feet back in a warm, hollowed-out crevice that many a cat had claimed as a den over the years. Currently the space was occupied by a brooding Electra and her two speckled yearlings, with anyone who got too close liable to get a paw to the face, so most of the other Jellicles tended to stay away.

Unless, of course, you knew the secret.

Alonzo walked up to the pipe, catching a whiff of Electra’s scent—and an echo of her low warning growl—before turning off to the right. Here, as he watched, the air began abruptly to shimmer, as if a passing breeze had disturbed some thin shroud cast over it. Out of nothing at all an extra junction materialized, made of metal so black as to almost melt into the dark background, smaller than the main, but still roomy. Alonzo knew of only one cat in the entire tribe capable of generating such an illusion. You could almost call him…magical. 

A wave of warmth and familiar scents hit him as soon as he stuck his head inside. Despite his best intentions, Alonzo shivered with pleasure and anticipation. He didn’t always like sharing a den with other mated pairs, some instinctive part of him wanting to keep Pouncival all to himself, but this winter had hit all of them hard. Throughout the Junkyard cats were piling in together for warmth, and if he was going to share with anyone, it might as well be…

“Well, look what the storm blew in,” said the Rum Tum Tugger, eyes bright above his customary grin.

Curled up next to him so close he almost blended into his mate’s fur, Mistoffelees favored Alonzo with a small smile. “Hi. Any luck?”

Alonzo sighed and scooted into the den. “No. I was on the trail of a mouse but then suddenly the wind turned and…” He stopped, because something wasn’t right. He stared at the mess of blankets where Tugger and Misto lay, and though it was warm and dry and oh-so-inviting, something was missing. Or rather, someone.

When he narrowed his eyes, identical looks of guilt showed up on his friends’ faces. “Don’t be mad,” Mistoffelees said.

Alonzo was bloody  _ furious. _

“Munkustrap!” His friend startled and turned as he marched up, and it was all Alonzo could do not to let loose his anger and beat the other cat into a bloody pulp. “Where the  _ fuck _ is Pouncival?”

Straps pressed his lips together. “I—”

“He’s supposed to be  _ resting! _ ” He was yelling loudly enough to carry across the entire Junkyard, drawing curious furred heads out of a multitude of corners and crevices, but Alonzo didn’t care. Let them all see. Let them all know just what Pouncival had sacrificed for them so maybe they’d finally let him take a goddamned  _ breath _ — “You promised me you’d keep him off the roster for today! He’s running himself into the  _ ground _ , Straps, what were you even  _ thinking _ —”

“Demeter aborted the litter.”

The world crashed to a halt. As the last echoes of his shouts faded into nothing, Alonzo gaped at his friend, everything inside him turned awful and cold. “Wh…What?”

As the tribe’s primary protector, it was Munkustrap’s job to always hold himself firm, a solid, steady foundation beneath the Jellicles’ feet that no fear or disaster could ever shake. But now Alonzo’s oldest friend drew into himself, shoulders slumped, ears drooping, everything about him heavy with a sorrow so great Alonzo felt his own heart tighten in his chest. “She couldn’t stop it,” he whispered, voice quivering. “We tried everything but…she couldn’t stop it.”

Alonzo swallowed and glanced at a pile of old boxes and blankets up near the rocking chair, where he knew Munkustrap and Demeter made their den. No one emerged and he heard no sounds, but the wind brought him the telltale stench of tears and blood.

He stepped forward to bump his friend’s shoulder. “ _ Shit _ , Straps. I’m so sorry.”

It was no secret that Munkustrap loved kittens. He and Demeter had been so excited when Jemima and her brothers came along, and had raised two more litters after that, all of them growing up with their mother’s steel and their father’s confidence. Among the Jellicles, mated pairs took turns bearing litters from year to year to prevent overpopulation and ensure the Junkyard would always provide adequate space, so Munkustrap and Demeter had subsequently refrained from having more kittens for the last three seasons. This was the first time in a long while, and Alonzo had watched with a smile and a warm heart as that childlike excitement came over his friend again, that awe and hope at the chance to once again be a father.

Now Munkustrap stared down at his paws, everything about him etched in stark, jagged grief. Alonzo bit his lip. Demeter wasn’t even the first; Tantomile had lost her litter last week, and Electra a few days before that, which was why she’d retreated to her den with her remaining children. Cassandra had birthed her litter with Coricopat early, thus saving them the pain, but even now the kittens struggled to wean, malnourished and underweight. The winter wasn’t just starving them of food, but of the entire tribe’s future.

Come spring, the Junkyard would be quiet, absent the kittens’ shrieks and laughter.

Munkustrap took a deep breath. It seemed to help a bit, as he straightened his shoulders and met Alonzo’s gaze. “I didn’t mean for Pouncival to hear,” he said. “I was talking about it with Skimble and Jenny and he must’ve just been passing by and happened to overhear. He volunteered, Alonzo.”

Alonzo nodded. The truth was he would’ve done the same thing had he been in Pouncival’s place. Seeing his friend in such obvious pain…he’d do anything to make sure that didn’t happen to anyone else.

Even so…sudden cold stung his ear and he shook his head, looking up. It was snowing, thick white flakes drifting down from the sky as if the Heaviside Layer itself was mourning their loss. He took a deep breath and turned back to Munkustrap. “I have to find him,” he said. “I get it, Straps, I do, but in this weather—”

“I know.” Straps stepped forward, and there was no hesitation in the way he rubbed his cheek to Alonzo’s, forgiveness, as always, coming to his friend as easy as breath. When he drew back the grief still hovered, but there was a steadiness in his gaze, that unbreakable part of Munkustrap that would always protect his tribe. “Just not by yourself, okay? Especially with this snow.”

“We’ll come too.”

Alonzo blinked and turned to see Mistoffelees standing next to Tugger. The all-black tom shrugged at his inquisitive look. “We’re sort of responsible for not stopping Pouncival earlier,” he said, before nudging his mate. “Besides, I’m bringing a space heater.”

“Knew you only loved me for my body,” Tugger said with a crooked grin. Still, Alonzo could see the merit of it. Misto’s magic could help them track down Pouncival faster, and Alonzo had to rather reluctantly admit that Tugger’s thick double coat and large size were perfect for this weather.

“Okay,” he said, nodding at his friends. “Let’s go.”

With any luck, this would take no time at all.

Half an hour later, the snow was coming down in an icy white curtain so thick Alonzo could barely see two feet in front of him. The wind blew harsh and ruthless, chilling him to the bone until his teeth chattered and he could barely manage to put one paw in front of the other. It was as if the universe itself were trying its damnedest to keep him from his mate, to take away the one thing that gave Alonzo warmth and hope in the world. Well, he knew better. Pouncival was out there somewhere, alone and probably freezing, and Alonzo would go to the ends of the earth to find him.

A sudden wind sent a blast of snow into his face. Alonzo coughed and shook his head, pawing at his whiskers before turning. “Anything?”

It was a miracle Mistoffelees and Tugger managed to even hear him through the blizzard. The all-black tom was a shivering mess, crouched so close to his mate they might as well have been the same cat, but the look he gave Alonzo was determined even through the thick curtain of white. “No, nothing!”

“You gotta be able to scent him or something!” Tugger shouted over the howling wind. To his credit, he hadn’t once suggested they go back, even though the cold had to be bothering even him by now. Alonzo himself wasn’t sure he’d ever feel warm again, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He had to find Pouncival.

Ordinarily, picking up his mate’s trail wouldn’t have required more than a quick sniff of a passing breeze. After all these years, he knew Pouncival’s telltale sunny-grass scent almost as well as his own, and could predict his mate’s movement patterns with ease: Pouncival kept to the shadows whenever he could, avoided humans like the plague (except for a a penchant for planters full of strong-smelling flowers), and generally preferred walking west over east. All this should have led him straight to his mate by now, except the goddamned snow and chilling wind made it so that Alonzo hardly had any idea which direction he was going from one step to the next. What should’ve been an easy matter, searching out Pouncival within a matter of minutes, had turned into an hour-long slog through a city he barely recognized anymore. 

And with the snow coming down even harder, and the sky above slowly but surely sliding toward the black of night, they were running out of time.

Just as the first tendrils of real worry started to curl around his heart, Misto suddenly stiffened, tail whipping as he sussed out something in the air neither Alonzo nor Tugger could sense. “Wait.” A cautious sniff, a slight tilt of the head, and his eyes suddenly went wide. “This way!”

He turned and leapt over a nearby garbage can. Alonzo scrambled to follow, Tugger right on his heels, pursuing the flicking black line of Mistoffelees’s tail as he led them through a series of back alleys lit by dim streetlamps. Flashes of storefronts and signs through the snow told Alonzo they were somewhere in the western sector of the city—he’d been right, at least, that that was where Pouncival would go.

Then, like a fond memory in a greying world, it hit him: the smell of his mate, lightning quick and so slight he almost missed it, but there nonetheless. Alonzo skidded to a halt, pivoting so quickly he nearly slipped on the icy ground. “I got him, come on!”

Just like that, he was the leader, Misto and Tugger tailing him so close he could almost feel their breaths at his back as he plunged through the snow, uncaring of the cold that bit into his paws or the ice that clung to his whiskers. Pouncival was somewhere nearby, all alone in this freezing snow, and Alonzo would find him if it was the last thing he—

There.

He slowed, sniffing at the air. They were in a narrow alley located between two tall, blocky tenement buildings. A large dumpster sat in one corner, buried almost completely in snow, and next to it was a haphazard pile of wooden crates, smashed and broken but creating underneath them a small tunnel, just enough space for shelter.

Alonzo crept forward, pawing aside the small snowdrift that had formed at the entrance to the makeshift den. The scent that greeted him then was familiar as home, and he let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, everything inside him going soft with relief.

He turned to glance at Mistoffelees and Tugger, crouched together in the snow. “Wait here.”

They nodded, and he carefully scooted down the tunnel. Sure enough, the dim daylight revealed a small plastic crate relatively intact and hidden by the others, turned conveniently on its side, with a familiar bundle of white, black, and brown inside, curled up in a ball so tight it was a miracle he hadn’t broken any bones.

Pouncival looked to be asleep, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he did his level best to disappear into his own fur. He was also shivering something awful, Alonzo could see the shaking even from this distance, but he tamped down on the instinctive urge to rush to his mate. A thin, old scar beneath his left ear had taught him better.

Lowering down on his front paws, he took a moment to just breathe, encouraging his own scent to fill up the small space. Then, when he could smell nothing but Pouncival’s scent mixed with his own, he opened his mouth and chittered, soft but sharp, a simple three-note call that echoed inside the den.

He saw it the moment Pouncival woke. His mate shuddered and shifted, one golden eye slowly sliding open, blinking in confusion for a couple of seconds before settling on him. “R-R-Renfinnick,” Pouncival said, and Alonzo smiled.

“Carbucketty.” Bond Names exchanged, he darted forward to curl around his mate, hissing the instant his fur touched Pouncival’s. “Layer, is that  _ ice? _ What were you thinking?”

“D-D-Don’t be m-mad.”

Alonzo rolled his eyes and set to grooming, ignoring the little stings of pain on his tongue as he worked the moisture out of his mate’s fur. “I’ll be mad later when you’re no longer a bloody  _ icicle _ . Oy, space heater! Get in here!”

Pouncival snorted a half-laugh as Tugger poked his head into the den with a pout. “I feel extremely used, just so you know,” he said, but his tone was light as he padded into the den, Mistoffelees close behind.

As they piled in together, Alonzo hauled Pouncival close, feeling his mate shiver hard enough to vibrate his own body. “You are such an idiot.”

“S-Straps said—”

“I know.” He licked Pouncival’s ear, feeling his mate settle against him. “Still an idiot.”

“Why didn’t you come straight home?” Mistoffelees asked from somewhere beneath Tugger’s mane. Alonzo couldn’t even see him.

“T-Tried,” Pouncival answered, “b-b-but it got too c-cold. Th-Thought I could w-wait it out.” He nodded toward the corner of the den. “C-Consolation prize?”

Alonzo followed his gaze, saw the small lump of feathers, and huffed a laugh. “Only you, Pounce, would manage to catch a sparrow in the middle of a goddamned blizzard.”

The briefest flash of a grin. “T-Talented.”

“Or stubborn.”

“You l-love me anyway.”

Alonzo sighed, trying to sound as put upon as possible even as he tightened his grip on his mate. “Yeah. I do.”

Pouncival purred, and Alonzo smiled. Misto was already dropping off, pressed up against Tugger’s chest while his mate curled his large body around all three of them, the small cozy space beginning to warm with their combined heat. Now that he knew Pouncival was safe, Alonzo felt exhaustion creep up and he yawned, nuzzling his mate’s soft fur. The snow still fell outside but their den was warm. They had nowhere to be and no one to answer to. 

Next to him Pouncival sighed, blinking slowly. “Tired.”

“Yeah?” Alonzo kissed him, just a soft, chaste brush of lips. “Then go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“You always are.”

Alonzo smiled, heart swelling with warmth. Pouncival didn’t say it out of habit or as an endearment. He said it as fact.

Outside, the snow finally began to let up, a few pale streaks of sunlight reaching in to caress the edges of the den. Tugger quietly groomed Mistoffelees as he slept, while Pouncival’s breaths slowed as he fell into slumber, curled into Alonzo with easy familiarity. The winter had been cold and bitter, and had robbed them of something precious. But Alonzo still had what was most important. He still had everything that mattered.

Winter would end eventually. Then a new day would begin.

Alonzo yawned, held his mate close, and followed him into sleep.


End file.
